Bannon on Biography.com: “After graduating in 1976 he moved on to the Navy, serving as an auxiliary engineer and a navigator. He later became a special assistant to the chief of naval operations at the Pentagon, and earned his master’s degree in national security studies through nighttime classes at Georgetown University.

Finance and Entertainment Mogul

Bannon graduated from Harvard Business School in 1985, and then became a mergers and acquisitions banker with Goldman Sachs. In 1990, he founded Bannon & Co., a boutique investment bank that specialized in media. He soon brokered a deal that landed him an ownership stake in a then little-known TV program called Seinfeld, which eventually generated massive profits through syndication.

After selling his company in 1998, Bannon became a partner in an entertainment production and management company called The Firm. He also devoted more time to his own creative interests, adapting a book about Ronald Reagan into a 2004 biopic called In the Face of Evil.”

According to The Guardian, Bob Mercer—the billionaire hedge-fund manager and Trump supporter who until recently held a majority stake in Breitbart (he announced last week that he would transfer that stake to his children)—created a network of offshore accounts in Bermuda to fund the Mercer Family Foundation, which dumps money into conservative causes. The foundation reportedly draws its money from “feeder funds”—offshoots of the main hedge fund Renaissance Technologies—registered to Bermuda law firm Appleby. (A similar system was set up to manage the retirement accounts of Renaissance employees.) The Mercers then sold off their Bermuda investments to finance the foundation, avoiding the up-to-39-percent U.S. tax rate normally levied on nonprofits funded by investments financed through debt. “This is simple, but ingenious,” an investment adviser told the Guardian. ‘You take retirement plans or foundations, you invest them in a hedge fund, and even if the value rises 100 percent, you can sell off the investments with no tax consequences.'”

“During a spring meeting of Club for Growth donors at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach, Fla., the Mercers sought out [Andrew] Breitbart after watching him deliver a talk about how to co-opt the political strategies used by liberals.”

Mercer Investments and Stephen K. Bannon Business Ventures:

Cambridge Analytica, US Subsidiary of SCL Group, Former vice president and secretary of the board. Mercers are principal investors. Worked on 2016 Trump Campaign and the Ted Cruz Campaign for Mercer family PAC

Government Accountability Institute (GAI), Bannon co-founder and former Chairman, the Mercers invested at least $2 million in President Peter Schweitzer’s Clinton Cash, a film produced by

Glittering Steel, Co-founded by Bannon and Rebekah Mercer, it is the political advertisement and film production company of “Clinton Cash” (2016) and “Torchbearer” (2016) Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson on absurdity of life without God.

Reclaim New York Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer co-founded the neighborhood watch training program, Bannon was Vice-Chairman.

Steve Bannon’s next moves will be all about the billionaire Mercer family. I’m told Bannon, who visited New York this week, met with Bob Mercer and together they will be a well-funded force on the outside.

Bannon has felt liberated since it became clear he was being pushed out, according to friends. He’s told associates he has a “killing machine” in Breitbart News, and it’s possible he returns to lead their editorial operation.

A source familiar with Breitbart’s operations told me they would go “thermonuclear” against “globalists” that Bannon and his friends believe are ruining the Trump administration, and by extension, America.

Watch for Breitbart’s Washington Editor Matt Boyle to be a central figure in this war — which has already begun — against White House officials like HR McMaster, Dina Powell, Gary Cohn, and Jared and Ivanka.

“Bob Mercer and Steve Bannon had a five hour meeting Wednesday to plot out next steps, said a source with knowledge of the meeting. They plotted strategy going forward — both political and media strategy. The meeting was at Mercer’s estate on Long Island. Mercer had dinner the next night at Bedminster with President Trump and a small group of donors. The source said Mercer and Bannon “remain strong supporters of President Trump’s and his agenda.”

The day after the disastrous “Unite The Right” Rally in Charlottesville, VA: Trump advisers signal the knives are out for Bannon Sun August 13, 2017 Bridgewater, New Jersey (CNN) “The comments come as a source inside the White House tells CNN that White House chief of staff John Kelly has soured on Bannon, a political operative with deep ties to the ‘alt-right’ and the former head of the conservative news site Breitbart. Bannon is seen as pursuing his own agenda, which does not fit mesh with the power structure Kelly is putting in place, the source added. A second source told CNN on Saturday that it’s not only Kelly and Bannon whose relationship is on the rocks, it is also Bannon and the President….His job was on the line in April, according to a source close to the White House, after Trump grew frustrated with his inability to cooperate and work with others. The chilling came as Bannon fought with Jared Kushner, a top Trump aide and the President’s son-in-law. “I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Trump told the New York Post in April.” CNN

The Following PBS Video, “Bannon’s War“, is an excellent introduction.

Bannon’s Views Can Be Traced to a Book That Warns, ‘Winter Is Coming’

The book, “The Fourth Turning,” a 1997 work by two amateur historians, Neil Howe and William Strauss, lays out a theory that American history unfurls in predictable, 80-year cycles of prosperity and catastrophe. And it foresees catastrophe right around the corner.

The book delineates history into four seasonal cycles, or “turnings”: growth, maturation, decay and destruction. It is the kind of wild, provocative idea that Mr. Bannon loves. But it is also just the kind of thinking that his opponents see as evidence that he is too Machiavellian and idiosyncratic for the job of President Trump’s chief strategist.

The basis of his worldview — which has been described as everything from Leninist to alt-right, an extremist fringe movement associated with white nationalism — is still shrouded in mystery and conjecture. But by his own telling, much of the foundation for his political beliefs can be found in the book, which predicts that America is hurtling toward a crisis on par with the American Revolution, the Civil War and the Great Depression.

And the grim future that the book foresees helps explain the underpinnings of the president’s conservative, nationalist “America First” agenda, one that Mr. Bannon has played a large role in shaping.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the world is in the beginning state of a crisis that it can’t avoid,” Mr. Bannon said in a recent interview.” NY Times

“The ‘Deconstruction of the Administrative State,’ and Much More, Is Inevitable

The Fourth Turning will trigger a political upheaval beyond anything Americans could today imagine. New civic authority will have to take root, quickly and firmly — which won’t be easy if the discredited rules and rituals of the old regime remain fully in place. We should shed and simplify the federal government in advance of the Crisis by cutting back sharply on its size and scope but without imperiling its core infrastructure.

The rhythmic, seasonal nature of history that the authors identify foresees an inevitable period of decay and destruction that will tear down existing social and political institutions. Mr. Bannon has famously argued that the overreaching and ineffective federal government — “the administrative state,” as he calls it — needs to be dismantled. And Mr. Trump, he said, has just begun the process.

As Mr. Howe said in an interview with The Times: “There has to be a period in which we tear down everything that is no longer functional. And if we don’t do that, it’s hard to ever renew anything. Forests need fires, and rivers need floods. These happen for a reason.” NY Times

“Bannon, Kushner, and Flynn have been working closely together for two years,” added another source who was part of the Trump transition, again speaking anonymously to discuss sensitive policy discussions”…Bannon and Kushner formed the Strategic Initiatives Group: “Less-charitable observers say the SIG is intended to be an alternative lodestar of power and influence to just possibly supersede the advice coming out of the traditional centers of influence like the National Security Council and the wider agencies of government.” January 31, 2017 Steve Bannon Builds A New Node Of Power In The Trump White House The Daily Beast

A week after inauguration, Bannon slipped an Executive Order in the stack, placing himself on the National Security Council without Trump’s understanding. On March 5, 2107, Trump removed him from the Principals Committee on the Council.

The Real News-Abby Martin Exposes Steve Bannon: An excellent introductory video to his business and personal history as his quest for power led him from Wall Street, to Hollywood and then the White House.

Cambridge Analytica, VP through August 2016, Mercer funded and is being investigated for Russiagate involvement. Serious data acquisition and analysis Cambridge provided psychometric micro-targeting of people on social media using the OCEAN method for Mercer-backed Ted Cruz‘s campaign. Wikipedia on Cambridge Analytica

Wealth: “He disclosed assets between $13 million and $56 million, including his influential political consultancy, Bannon Strategic Advisors Inc., worth as much as $25 million. Bannon also disclosed that he earned slightly less than $200,000 last year as executive director of Breitbart News Network LLC, before he resigned to join Trump’s campaign last August.” Associated Press

Henry Meyer, Bloomberg “The Russian ultra-nationalist dubbed “Putin‘s Rasputin” by Breitbart News when it was run by President Donald Trump‘s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has emerged as an unlikely foreign-policy fixer for the Kremlin. Alexander Dugin, whose bushy beard gives him a passing resemblance to the Siberian mystic who bewitched the last czar’s family, says he played a key but largely clandestine role in patching up Russia’s relations with Turkey, an account confirmed by a senior figure in Ankara. And with people he calls ideological allies now in the White House, Dugin says he’s bullish on better ties with the U.S., too.”

“The idea to infiltrate Facebook came to Bannon from Chris Gacek, a former congressional staffer who is now an official at the Family Research Council, which lobbies against abortion and many LGBT rights.“There is one for a DC-based ‘Public Policy Manager’ at Facebook’s What’s APP [sic] division,” Gacek, the senior fellow for regulatory affairs at the group, wrote on Aug. 1, 2016. “LinkedIn sent me a notice about some job openings.”

“This seems perfect for Breitbart to flood the zone with candidates of all stripe who will report back to you / Milo with INTEL about the job application process over at FB,” he continued.

On the same email thread, Yiannopoulos forwarded Bannon’s request to a group of contracted researchers, one of whom responded that it “Seems dificult [sic] to do quietly without them becoming aware of efforts.”

Generation Zero (2010) Bannon shows his dark view of the future after the financial crisis and exhibits his belief in the change that occurs after the inevitable cataclysmic war to bring on the “Fourth Turning”